


The One Where They Make Breakfast

by SorrySorrySorry



Series: Cooking with The Boys [1]
Category: Hamlet - Shakespeare
Genre: Breakfast, M/M, Modern AU, References to church camp, The folly of the upper class, i guess?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-07
Updated: 2017-08-07
Packaged: 2018-12-12 10:27:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11735151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SorrySorrySorry/pseuds/SorrySorrySorry
Summary: Bag Egg is a real recipe please try it at home.





	The One Where They Make Breakfast

Seeing Hamlet standing in the kitchen this early was decidedly unnerving. Or, perhaps it was offensive to think that, Horatio decided. He shouldn’t be surprised by the prince waking up before the clock reached double digits. That was rude. Probably. Definitely. “Did I wake you? Sorry.” 

Hamlet shook his head, moving immediately to the coffee machine. It was likely the only thing in the kitchen he knew how to operate without Horatio’s assistance. No. Rude again. Stop it. That was probably not the case. It was Hamlet’s kitchen after all. He grew up with it, in all it’s stainless-steel, latest-model, upper-class niceties. In secret, Horatio had run his hand along the granite countertop, sat at the bar, pressed his face against it and felt the cool surface. It was leagues away from the counter at home, chips in the old tile covered casually by a cutting board that always seemed to be there. Unavoidable spiders making their homes in the crevices of the windowsill above the sink. Character, that’s what Horatio was forced to call it. Hamlet’s kitchen didn’t have a windowsill above the sink. He had a sliding glass door leading out to the pool, grill and lounge, fully-stocked should the weather support the rare but extravagant outdoor dinner party. Even if it didn’t, one could take shelter by the pool, sheltered from the elements by the surrounding glass atrium. Where was the. Character. 

To distract himself from his thoughts, which were quickly getting away from him, Horatio mechanically fished a mug out of a cupboard, depositing it in Hamlet’s hands before he tried drinking the coffee straight from the machine. Hamlet shot Horatio a look of gratitude over the rim as he took a sip of the contents. “Marcellus left the alarm on,” he said. “I couldn’t get back to sleep. It kept going off. It was worse than when Ros started talking in his sleep at church camp.”

Horatio gave a small smile, though he disliked being reminded of church camp as a Thing That Happened, but rather, as weird fever dream of Christian rock music and neon t-shirts with bible quotes on the back that he shared with Hamlet for whatever reason. He placed a kiss on the prince’s forehead. “I was about to make breakfast, are you hungry?”

“Yeah, do you want help?”

It was rude. It was definitely rude. But Horatio shook his head almost immediately. His smile became stiff the moment he forced it to remain where it was. “It’s fine. I was just going to make eggs,” he said.

“I’m never awake to help. This is an opportunity.”

“It’s really okay, sir.”

The word slipped out faster than Horatio could catch it. Hamlet’s face dropped. “You don’t have to call me that. We’re. You know.”

Horatio swallowed and nodded. He forced himself to blink and move and pretend he could properly do things with even a little bit of tension in the air. “Sorry,” he said, opening the fridge and closing it with nothing to show for the effort.

“Please don’t apologize. You’ve seen me naked.”

“I have. Yeah. You’ve...also seen me naked.”

“That reminds me, I got Dad to install a lock on the sauna without asking too many questions.”

For a moment, there was silence, and then Horatio turned to see Hamlet holding in a bit of laughter. “I don’t think you understand how traumatizing it was for Ophelia’s father to walk in on us,” he said, getting lost in a fit of giggles himself. “ _ And you tried to salvage that, too! _ ”

“And I’ll make up for that complete lack of understanding of sexual nuances by helping you with breakfast. Eggs, right?”

It was too late, now. The prince had already set his mug down and rolled up his sleeves, and as if the already impossible situation was begging to be worsened, Marcellus appeared from around the counter. He took a seat at the bar and rubbed his eyes. “I heard the word ‘eggs’. I also heard the word ‘naked’ and ‘father’, but hey. Breakfast time?”

Horatio felt his face redden. He looked to Hamlet, only to find him sporting an unbearable amount of determination. “We’re going to make eggs, yeah,” he said, and...oh dear, he seemed proud.

“I didn’t know you knew how to cook,  _ your highness _ .”

“I know how to kick your peasant ass out of my house, too, if you want to patronize me,” Hamlet snapped, cheeks flushing a bit. “So. Eggs.”

While he didn’t realize at first, Horatio found Hamlet had his eyes trained on him. He was putting on a very good show of confidence considering the utter turmoil Horatio was getting from his stare. “Eggs,” Horatio repeated. “Easy.”

“Right, easy,” Hamlet echoed. He didn’t move.

The tension was back. Horatio forced out the fakest laugh he’d given since he got called up to do the pledge of allegiance to the Christian flag at church camp. “First, I’ll get the eggs, and Hamlet will get a bowl out of the cupboard.”

“I’ll get the bowl.”

But in the time it took Horatio to secure six eggs, one at a time, from the fridge, and place them, one at a time, on the counter, Hamlet had casually opened three drawers which weren’t even big enough to store a bowl in. He drifted from one area of the kitchen to another, completely lost. Which should have been impossible. He grew up here, didn’t he? Horatio felt a bead of sweat roll down his forehead. “Just kidding!” he said. Shouted, actually. On accident. At eight in the morning. He fake-laughed again, fishing a bowl out of the cupboard next to the fridge. They’d always been by the fridge. “I had a bowl right here the whole time. Now I just need a big fork to beat the eggs.”

Hamlet’s hand began to stretch toward a drawer Horatio knew held only grilling accessories. He cleared his throat to get the prince’s attention, tilting his head toward the drawer beside the sink. He received a blank stare which lasted all too long before Hamlet got the hint, only to move to the sink and look in the drawer directly beneath it. Plastic bags. So many, in so many different sizes. And none of them forks. 

Marcellus was steadily on the path to catching on, and for the sake of Hamlet’s pride, Horatio made another noise, drawing attention to himself before any of it settled on the bags and the prince’s ears deeping in hue. “That’s a great idea! Bag Egg! Excellent, good breakfast technique, sir!”

“ _ Hamlet _ .”

“Hamlet!”

“Bag Egg?” Marcellus scoffed.

“Bag Egg!” 

Horatio, all too quick and all too loud, removed the sandwich bags from the still-open drawer. “It’s a really simple way to cook eggs for breakfast burritos,” he said. “You don’t remember learning it in Home Ec? We learned it in Home Ec, didn’t we Hamlet?”

“Home...what?”

“Home Economics!”

“Horatio, please stop yelling, you’re stressing me out.”

“Sorry, I forgot you didn’t have room for it in your schedule because of the APs! Please crack the eggs in the bowl!”

It took one egg smashed all over the bowl’s edge, dripping pitifully down Hamlet’s hand for Horatio to take over. But not before washing Hamlet’s hand and sending him on the arbitrary task of getting milk out of the fridge to pour into a measuring cup. 

All of Horatio’s frustrations were then shown in his beating of the yolks, which he did in record time. He had to crack and beat more after foolishly allowing Hamlet’s next task to include adding pepper to mix. A pinch turned into an impressive mound in the center of the bowl. 

“Can you...turn the stove on, please,” Horatio soon mumbled, now worn from his yelling phase. Despite the insipid yellow opacity of the liquid, he swore he could see his reflection mocking him from the yolks. At least the high-quality countertop felt nice on his hands, gripping it for dear life with every decision the prince made. The prince who, even after carefully considering all of the dials before him, still ended up preheating the oven to 350. 

Marcellus was either too kind or too tired to comment at this point. He rested his chin in his hands and smiled from his seat. “So, what’s Bag Egg, exactly?”

Though the question was clearly directed at Hamlet, who was now sporting the stature and expression of a deer in the headlight, Horatio hovered over him, acting at a breakneck pace to get the whole ordeal over with. It was like a cooking show, if any cooking show featured the chef sweating and filled with fear for whatever would happen next. Actually, that was a lot of cooking shows lately. The Food Network had gotten weird.

“It’s really simple,” Horatio explained, humoring Hamlet now with the task of filling a saucepan with water. He didn’t let him place it on the stove, keeping himself between Hamlet and the open flame. “You fill each bag with about two beaten eggs, and usually toppings you’d put in an omelette, like ham or peppers, and you seal it--” Hamlet helped fill one bag in the time it took Horatio to fill three. “--And you stick the bags in a saucepan of water. Then you bring it to a boil, letting the eggs firm up, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Hamlet echoed, letting Horatio guide his hands as he dropped a bag in the pan.

“Once they’re done, you can let them cool if you’d like, or you can just cut the bag open and slide the egg onto a tortilla. It keeps a naturally burrito-type shape, and the eggs are really...fluffy? I guess? And then you can add other toppings like salsa or sour cream or. Yeah.”

“I think we have some leftover pico de gallo from family taco night. You could add pico de gallo.”

“That’s exactly correct, Hamlet.”

The closest he’d come to being helpful the whole morning. No. That was definitely rude. Horatio gave him an encouraging nod before draining the egg water and cutting the bags open.

“We might be out of tortillas, though.”

For whatever reason, Hamlet crouching by the bottom crisper of the fridge was the limit. Marcellus couldn’t hold in a snort. Horatio was ready to fight him. He’d never fought anyone before, but he was ready. “We don’t need tortillas. That’s the great thing about Bag Egg. You can just eat it as an omelette.” So there.

“Whatever. Hamlet, can you grab me a fork?”

The prince closed the fridge with a sobering lack of confidence. He eyed the collection of drawers beside the sink once again, as if he didn’t remember which one had the bags in it despite opening it only moments ago. Horatio stood stalk still, feeling the life drain out of him as Hamlet carefully reached for that same drawer. Not the bag drawer. For the love of God, not the bag drawer. His fingers curled around the handle. For whatever reason, memories of reciting the pledge to the Christian flag were running through Horatio’s head. A crowd of councilors and pre-teens, a sea of neon Jesus t-shirts. The pain was the same.  _ One savior, crucified, risen, and coming again _ ...and then, whatever came next. No, Councilor Kelly, he didn’t know what came next. That didn’t mean he hated God or anything.

“Thanks, man.”

Horatio was violently pulled out of his daytime nightmares to Hamlet with a fork in one hand and the handle of the correct drawer in the other. Their eyes met, and he gave a soft thumbs up. Somewhere down the hall, Marcellus’ alarm was going off again.

_ Amen _ .

**Author's Note:**

> Bag Egg Recipe:
> 
> 2 eggs  
> 1/4 C. Milk  
> A pinch of salt  
> A pinch of pepper  
> Optional:  
> Ham, chopped or diced  
> Green or red pepper, diced  
> Bacon, crumbled  
> Onion, chopped or diced
> 
> Beat the eggs in a small bowl and add the milk, salt and pepper. Mix well. Stir in any of the optional ingredients. Pour the mixture into a sandwich bag and seal, leaving little to no air in the bag. Only egg. Place the bag in a small saucepan and cover with water. Bring the water to a boil. Remove the bag when the contents are in one firm block. Let the bag cool and cut it open with a pair of scissors. Serve as is or as part of a breakfast burrito.  
> Each bag serves one.


End file.
